Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Greg Pope in the Chair]

Greg Pope: Good morning. I would like to begin with a few announcements. Some Members have beaten me to this—Members may remove their jackets during Committee sittings. It is warm in here. I remind Members to switch mobile phones, pagers, BlackBerrys and so forth off, or to silent. I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill, copies of which are available in the room. I also remind Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule, I and my fellow Chairman do not intend to call starred amendments.
The Committee will be first asked to consider the programme motion on the amendment paper, the debate on which is limited to half an hour. We will then proceed to a motion to report written evidence, which I hope can be taken formally. If the Committee agrees to the programme motion, we will begin scrutiny immediately.

Kevin Brennan: I beg to move,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 24th June) meet,
(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 24th June;
(b) at 9.00 a.m. on Thursday 26th June;
(c) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 1st July; and
(d) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 3rd July;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 9; Schedule 1; Clauses 10 to 39; Schedule 2; Clauses 40 to 42; Schedule 3; Clauses 43 to 45; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 p.m. on Thursday 3rd July.
It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Pope, following an encouraging Second Reading which reflected the widespread commitment on both sides of the House to the issues in the Bill.
I understand that there was accord in the usual channels regarding the programme motion. I draw hon. Members’ attention to the fact that we will not be sitting on Thursday afternoon of this week. We were only too happy to agree to that, to accommodate the needs of Members of the Opposition. With those brief pleasantries, and in this perhaps not typical Wimbledon weather, I thank you, Mr. Pope, for allowing us to remove our jackets.

Tim Loughton: I welcome you, Mr. Pope. I do not think that I have served under your chairmanship. I am sure that you will be exceedingly fair and accommodating. I am particularly pleased that the Minister is leading for the Government. He and I are veterans of these things, going back to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and other legislation.
I am particularly pleased to be joined on the Opposition Benches by an ace team of veterans. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight was on Committee considering the Children Act 2004 with me, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove who will be joining us later—she sent her apologies—was on the Childcare Act 2006. There is also a debut Committee performance by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, after his excellent maiden speech in the debate on the Bill last week. He brings to the Committee a wealth of experience from many years on the family court circuit in the north of England. He also has great experience of fostering in his own family. I am sure that he will end up teaching all of us a thing or two.
I endorse the Minister’s comments on the excellent Second Reading, and point out that this is a pretty uncontentious Bill. It was amended for the good in the Lords, and we seek to support it as much as possible and to speed its enactment. There are areas where we want to add detail, and we want to tighten up some of the good intentions, which I think all members of the Committee will agree with. It will be a constructive debate and dialogue.
The way in which the amendments have been ordered means that there is an awful lot of activity at the back end. There are not that many amendments, and they are mostly probing or technical ones, but there are no fewer than 32 new clauses. There are almost as many new clauses as amendments. Things that might have been seen as amendments have been turned into new clauses on a whole host of subjects, including independent reviewing officers, advocacy, residential placements and some of their terms of scrutiny, and teachers and governors having responsibilities in schools. There are also some new clauses that we have tabled. One is on having a welfare checklist, which we would like to see at the heart of the Bill.
We would also like to see proposals on the role of a chief social worker. We might have debated that at the beginning, during our considerations of the first six clauses, but in your wisdom, Mr. Pope, you have decided that we should come back to that new clause later.
We are keen to move through the early clauses as speedily and constructively as possible, because new clauses have been tabled by not only the Opposition, but the Liberal Democrats and some Government Back Benchers, and we are keen to leave sufficient time to debate those fully nearer the end of our proceedings. On that basis, we are happy with the programme motion. However, rather than having only an hour during the final sitting to debate 20 new clauses, it would be nice to pace ourselves accordingly and give them the proper debating time that they merit.

Annette Brooke: This is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship, Mr. Pope, and it is a pleasure. I am pleased that the Minister is leading for the Government, as we have met before in other Committees. I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion, because not only does he bring valuable experience of schools, which relates to an important aspect of the Bill, but we feel that there should be some Welsh input from the opposition parties, as most of the Bill will apply to Wales. I am looking forward to the Committee’s proceedings and hope that they meet my expectations, because we are primarily in agreement that we need to do much better for vulnerable children. Having the opportunity to make a positive contribution to young peoples’ lives is a privilege, so I hope that all of our debates will be in that spirit.
We made a number of points on Second Reading that we want to take forward and in relation to which we want to have more detailed debate. Many of our concerns require clarification and pushing further. On Second Reading, I said that so much is dealt with in guidance and regulation that Committee is the only chance for us to get in there and ensure that the guidance and regulations will be implemented. Implementation will be the key to all of this. We can have all of our grand words, but unless we get it right and get the messages out to the wider world, we will not make the difference that I am sure we all wish to achieve.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—[Kevin Brennan.]

Greg Pope: Copies of any memoranda that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room, although none have been received so far.

Clause 1

Power to enter into arrangements for discharge of care functions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: It would be remiss of me not to mention the array of talent that I have with me on this side of the Committee, including my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, who has a tremendous amount of experience in these matters and, indeed, was greatly involved with the genesis of the Bill through the “Care Matters” White Paper that was published last June. There is also a wealth of experience behind me, including my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, who I am sure will do all that he can to help us achieve the Opposition’s strictures on debating the Bill in full and going through all of the new clauses.
In the past, Opposition Members have criticised the Government for their handling of what have sometimes been called—by myself included—“Wallace and Gromit” Bills, because the track is laid as the Committee proceeds. With this number of new clauses, perhaps the Opposition could be accused of something similar, but all of these are serious and important matters that need to be debated in full. With the aid of all members of the Committee, I am sure that we will be able to do that.
Members of the Committee will know that the Bill is based on the “Care Matters” White Paper, which was published last June, and the care implementation plan. By way of introduction to clause 1, perhaps I might indulge you, Mr. Pope, by setting out the context of the Bill and talking about Part 1, which includes clauses 1 to 6, because of the intricate way in which those clauses are interrelated. I think that that would be relevant to this clause stand part debate.
The Bill and White Paper are structured around four key principles. The first is ensuring good parenting from every person involved in these children’s lives. The second is giving young children a voice in the decisions that affect their future. The third is ensuring stability and continuity and the fourth is raising the aspirations of children in care. Part 1 will enable us to pilot social work practices. It will allow local authorities to delegate some of their social service functions to more autonomous practices that will be charged with putting the principles into practice.
We are all aware of the many problems faced by looked-after children. We have heard of cases of children seeing as many as 30 different social workers and going through nine or 10 care placements within a few years. We cannot expect young people to set out on the path to success that we are all aiming for if they are living from one month to the next and are reluctant to make ties, whether to social workers, schools or foster carers, lest they be broken. That experience of care often comes on top of horrific experiences such as abuse and neglect. The outcomes for looked-after children are far too poor.
The White Paper sets out action that we will take on a number of fronts. One of those is to test whether the social work practices introduced under part 1 provide the right framework and deliver significant improvements for children and young people in care. I will set out how the clauses in part 1 fit together because they are intimately connected. That will give a broader view of what we are trying to achieve.
Clause 1 provides that local authorities can delegate their social service functions relating to looked-after children and care leavers to social work practices, referred to in the Bill as
“providers of social work services”.
The thinking behind that is to give social workers a sense of ownership and control over their work. That should stimulate greater innovation and support better relationships with children. Social work practices might be a good thing for social work as well as for our most vulnerable children. That is why we are committed to giving local authorities, which are dedicated to providing improved outcomes for their children in care, the opportunity to try this new approach.
As provided for in the later clauses, we intend to run a set of tightly-controlled pilots for evaluation purposes, lasting initially for two years. Those pilot arrangements are likely to continue in place while the decision is made whether to roll out the model more widely. My Department will select the local authorities that will pilot social work practices and will assist with the set-up and operation of the pilots in partnership with the sector. Crucially, that will include the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, which is already closely engaged. Together, we will develop tools for the pilots, including a model contract, a payment structure and a proactive contract-management approach to support effective operation.

David Kidney: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Children’s Rights Alliance for England is concerned about the possible loss of human rights protection for children in and leaving care because of contracted-out services? Is it his view that the architecture of the Bill preserves their human rights protections or is it within his contemplation that they will lose them under the pilots?

Kevin Brennan: It is our view that they will keep their human rights protections under the Bill. We will explore that in more detail as we consider the Bill further, but in our view there is no reason why their human rights should not be protected. We consider that social work practices will be a functional public authority. Arrangements with providers of social work services under the clause will be fundamentally different from the arrangements in the case of YL v. Birmingham city council, which is the source of the concerns. In that case, the majority of the House of Lords concluded that a private care home was not exercising functions of a public nature. That is the source of the concerns. In reaching that conclusion their Lordships lay great emphasis laid great emphasis on the fact that a private care home was not exercising any delegated statutory functions. In other words, there was no duty on the local authority to provide care and accommodation to Mrs. YL under section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948. The authority’s statutory duty was to arrange for the provision of care and accommodation, and that duty had not been contracted out or delegated to the care home. However, the functions subject to arrangements under the clause will be functions of the local authority itself. Primary and secondary legislation imposes those functions, so their discharge, by social work practice providers, will be funded by the local authority. For those reasons, we strongly consider it to be absolutely clear that providers of social work practice will be discharging functions of a public nature. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend.
Other clauses in this part of the Bill provide context. Clause 2 restricts the functions that the local authority can delegate to social work practices. Those restrictions are important to ensure quality and focus in the services offered. In particular, the independent reviewing officer role will remain with the local authority: the IRO will have an important role to play in the social work practice model, as it is a mechanism whereby the local authority can quality assure the social work service provider in relation to individual cases.
Clause 3 confirms that the local authority can be accountable for the acts and omissions of a social work practice. I am sure that we will come on to that in more detail, as we go through the clauses.

Annette Brooke: Will the social work practices engage in preventive and family support work, as well as taking responsibility for the child once it has been taken into care?

Kevin Brennan: No. The intention is that social work practices will deal with children in care. The type of children whom we anticipate, and the report anticipated, will be looked after by social work practices are those who are in care and who may be likely to remain in care for a long time, because they are the ones most affected by the problems that we have identified of instability and change, including in the number of social workers that they face during their time in care.
Clause 4 provides for regulation of social work practices. It requires those who run SWPs to be registered with Her Majesty’s chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills and subject to regular inspection. It will also enable us to issue national minimum standards for social work practices and to make regulations under the Care Standards Act 2000 in respect of social work practices, as we have done in relation to other establishments and agencies covered by that Act.
Clause 5 is important because it provides that the local authority power to contract with providers of social work services in clause 1 is a social services function for the purposes of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. That means that the Secretary of State will be able to issue statutory guidance and give directions to the local authority about the use of the power.
Clause 6 is critical to our work on social work practices. It provides the context for clause 1 by allowing the social work practices set up under clause 1 to be piloted. The model’s operation needs to be tested before we can judge whether it will deliver significantly better outcomes for looked-after children, which is why genuine pilots are needed. We will ensure that they are proper trials so that comparisons can be made on a like-for-like basis. We need to support the set up of pilots, but it is not in the interests of looked-after children for us to prop up the pilots artificially, so that they can only succeed and not fail. We would be failing looked-after children if we did that.
We want to make rational decisions based on the pilots. We want to be innovative and do things in the true spirit of social work—a dedication to social progress and to being bold and ambitious for our looked-after children, which, after all, is the purpose of the Bill. We must be prepared to try out new ideas such as social work practices. On that basis, I commend clause 1 to the Committee.

Tim Loughton: Perhaps I can ask for your indulgence, Mr. Pope, given that in the first six clauses, amendments have been tabled only to clause 6. If I speak in general terms about these clauses, as the Minister did, we will be able to speed through part 1. I will identify some of the problems that social work practices aim to tackle, and then I have a list of questions about the detail for the Minister.
We agree in principle with the setting up and piloting of social work practices, so we want to engage constructively. Clause 1 gives local authorities the power to enter into arrangements to contract out their services and responsibilities. As I understand it, the arrangements will be similar to the way that GPs operate in GP practices or barristers in chambers in taking on work. We agree in principle because we desperately need to innovate.
Last year, the Conservative party set up commission on social work, which I chaired. We produced a worthwhile report, which was well received. It dealt with a wide panoply of problems that face the social worker profession, starting with the fact that social workers are simply not valued in the eyes of the public and particularly in the eyes of the tabloid press. The standing of social workers is worryingly low, yet they should be regarded as the fourth emergency service. They are as essential to the maintenance of a vulnerable child and his or her family as teachers, doctors, health professionals and others, but they are not regarded on an equal footing. We support anything in principle that could contribute to raising the game of social workers and raising the perception of social workers.
Too often, social workers are seen as surrogate child snatchers. Too often, the first contact that a vulnerable family has with a social worker is the knock on the door to initiate care proceedings. Many of us would like to see social workers instead working constructively and preventively with vulnerable families at an early stage, doing everything possible to keep families together, rather than adding to the 61,000 children in care.
We must remember that the majority of children in the care system are returned to their families within a year. It is therefore particularly important that the social worker—preferably the same one throughout—establishes and maintains good relations with the child, who may have to go into care temporarily, and with the family to whom, hopefully, the child will return.
We welcome anything that will provide innovation and an antidote to the demotivation felt by many social workers. In parts of London and other inner-city areas vacancy rates for social workers are as high as 20 per cent. As our commission reported, many social workers complain about the excessive bureaucracy, which means that too many of them spend too much time in front of computer screens and filling in forms, rather than in front of children and families trying to sort out problems at the sharp end. They complain that they are too often reactive rather than proactive, and that they are demonised in the press.
An interesting report was produced by the children’s rights director in July 2006, which was all about the comments of children in the care system about social workers and the social work system. We should never forget to focus on the views of the children. The report outlined the sorts of problems that social worker practices will have to deal with. Typical comments were that a child’s social worker had moved them on when they were just settling down in a placement; that children should not have had to stop all contact with their birth families or have been split up from their friends; that social workers should not ignore the views and feelings of young children; that social workers kept changing; that social workers who were leaving were not good at passing information on to whoever took on the child; and that it was important that children got on with their social worker.
We must remember that young people in the care system have very little say on who their social worker is. That is an important consideration for social work practices. All those challenges are faced by social workers now, when they are attached to local authorities, in dealing with children in the care system. The problems will not go away just because we have a new structure of social work practices. Those practices are now being piloted.
I recently met a group of children from the care system in Warwickshire, who came down with the cabinet member for children’s services there. Warwickshire has been piloting a pledge and has set up a board of children in the care system, so that they can give their views. They have come up with some good things. Some of their observations were that social workers were not good at returning their calls, that social workers should turn up to appointments on time and take an interest in what children do and say. They also said that social workers need to keep promises, that children need to see more of their social workers, and that social workers should get to know the children, perhaps by taking them out rather than staying in the house asking questions. Those are all challenges that social work practices will have to deal with.
A report was issued just last week by Ofsted on the views of parents of children in the care system on how the children were looked after, and more importantly on how they were being kept in touch in with them. As I said, the majority of those children will go back to their birth family or members of their extended family after a short spell in care. More than a quarter of parents said that they had not seen their child’s care plan, and some did not even know what a care plan was. A quarter did not know whether the council planned for their child to return home. What sort of a relationship is that, if parents do not know if there is a prospect of their child coming back home and what the family have to do to recreate a stable environment for the child to come back to? The report also showed that 44 per cent. of parents did not have a say in their child’s care plan, and 38 per cent. did not agree to the plan. Fifty nine per cent. of parents said that there had been no support from the local council to help to prevent their children from going into care in the first place. More than three quarters of parents said that they got no or not enough council support, including help with the child being returned to them.
There are serious problems facing both children in the care system and the families whence they come, and social workers. There are the usual problems of high staff turnover, staff being reactive not proactive, too much bureaucracy, money and staff flowing away from the front line, social workers being deprived of their autonomy, children coming into contact with too many social workers—there is a lack of continuity—and children not seeing their social workers often enough. Those are the problems facing social workers working for local authorities now. If we are to pilot a new form of social work practice, we need to be convinced that those new set-ups will acknowledge those problems and will be able to deal with them head-on and come up with solutions. At the moment that does not happen often.

Andrew Turner: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is cost? The cost may be different for those employed social workers to those in secondary accommodation. Can he explain how that will affect the composition?

Tim Loughton: My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the questions I wish to ask the Minister is about how the finances will work out. It is important not to look at a charge or a social work practice in isolation. We must look at the overall cost of the child’s experience and the overall effect on all social work practices and social work departments within local authorities. We do not want Peter to rob Paul, and we do not want to see knock-on effects on other children. We do not want to see something beneficial happening for a child in a short intensive burst because there is extra finance available, only for that child then to slip back into some of the problems they experienced before. It is important we take an holistic approach and consider the social worker profession and practices and practitioners within local authorities.
The bottom line must be the outcomes for children. I am concerned primarily with that, as I am sure that all of us in the Committee are. The structures are secondary to achieving the right results for children in the care system—the most vulnerable children of all—who are the subject of this welcome Bill.
I have sat in family courts, and my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich has made a profession in cases and I am sure will have seen this first hand. The last time, I sat in on several cases and had lunch and talked with the judge afterwards. He said that in every case that had come before him that morning, the social worker present was not the one who had started the case when he had first heard it weeks or months before. Interestingly, in almost every case in the court that I went to, the social worker was Australian and was actually a very good social worker. Many of them come over here, and we are grateful that they do, because there are many gaps in the profession, as we know. However in many cases, unfortunately, they are not going to be around for a long time. That lack of continuity is deeply worrying in an area where, above all, we need continuity and stability for vulnerable children and their families. Will social work practices provide greater continuity than the stressed and under pressure social work departments of local authorities do now?
There are big disparities within the system and between different local authorities. That is one of my biggest concerns. For example, if one looks at the records, one can find authorities where children have had had three or more placements within the previous 12 months. Three or more placements represents enormous upheaval for a vulnerable child who, in many cases, has come from unsettled and threatening backgrounds. Why is there such an enormous disparity between different authorities?
The latest figures that I have been able to get out of the Minister’s Department show that as of March 2007 in Cornwall, 23.5 per cent. of children had had three or more placements in the previous 12 months—almost a quarter had experienced the considerable turmoil of going into different foster parents, or residential or other care in the preceding 12 months. How can being moved that often contribute to reconstructing a degree of stability, such as being able to stay at the same school and with the same group of friends? I do not know why the turnover in placements was considerable in Cornwall in particular—it may have been an exceptional year. In Stoke-on-Trent the figure was 19.1 per cent. One imagines that the problem may be more severe in inner cities where there are difficulties recruiting social workers, but, in contrast, the figure for the London borough of Barnet was just 5.4 per cent. There will always be divergence between local authorities—they deal with different demographics and different challenges—but that is an enormous range of experiences.
One of the biggest challenges that the Government face is how to get greater conformity in achievement and, preferably, get nearer to the Barnet level of 5.4 per cent. Barnet has an excellent children’s services department: it invested in its children’s services and social workers five or six years ago and is now harvesting the benefits. Can the Minister assure me that social work practices will go some way to decreasing the enormous divergence of experience in those and the other statistics relating to the achievements and outcomes of looked-after children? Will the Minister target some of the worst or some of the best local authorities in that range as part of the nine pilots? I do not think that the prospective pilots have been named yet.
There are many other examples of good practice; I and other hon. Members mentioned some on Second Reading last week, so I will not go over that again. My point is that social work practices will not be the universal panacea to the problems of instability among the social work profession. We need to innovate and encourage the many voluntary organisations—NCH do a lot of preventive family support, which I mentioned last week and Community Service Volunteers do a fantastic volunteer social worker programme.
The Government tasked Professor Le Grand to chair the social care practices working group, which was established by the then Department of Education and Skills in November 2006. An eminent group of men and women served on that group, including Alistair Pettigrew, who was the director of children’s social care in Lewisham and a member of the Conservative party commission on social work, Lynne Berry, who was the chief executive of the General Social Care Council and has also made a contribution to our commission, and Paul Fallon, who was the head of children’s services in Barnet and to whom I am sure much of the credit is due for the excellent figures that I have just mentioned.
The social care practices working group recommended the preferred model of a professional partnership grouping of between six and 10 partners, the majority of whom should be social workers, and the clauses suggest that the Government have adopted that model. Interestingly, the group recommended that the payment arrangements would allow a fixed baseline amount to be paid to the social work practice by the local authority and that a bonus unit based should be based on the outcome that the social work practice achieves, presumably measured through the outcomes for the children. Again, further detail on how that will work would be useful, as they things come back to the financing of the practices, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight mentioned.
Clause 1 leaves the details of the commissioning arrangements to regulations, which we do not yet have. As so often happens in Public Bill Committees, we are grasping in the dark for what the regulations that will bring these provisions into force will look like.
I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr. Pope, while I was trying to set the scene. I think that that is important, but members of the Committee can be assured that I will not repeat the process for the remaining clauses. However, I have a few additional questions for the Minister. We want assurances that the pilots will be meaningful and not just be set up so that they can report and move seamlessly into being the norm across the country. I will be delighted if they are successful and have much to offer, but they are controversial and a number of concerns have been raised by professionals, local government and authorities about the knock-on effect that the pilots might have on existing local authority-led social work departments.
Will the Minister tell us how the pilots will be evaluated, so that they will not just be nodded through, and will he confirm that that evaluation will assess the knock-on effects on the local authorities and the actual outcomes for the children involved, so that we do not risk simply creaming off some of the best social workers from local authority departments to join the social work practices? If the pilots are successful, they should also have a positive knock-on effect for social workers by attracting more people into the profession and improving standards of social workers overall.
The hon. Member for Stafford rightly mentioned the human rights dimension, because the Bill does not say that social work practices, as providers of services, will be functional public authorities, which I think is the technical term that the Human Rights Act uses. That was left hanging in the air after the debate in the Lords, so further details from the Minister would be welcome.
On the level of qualifications held by the social workers who are likely to work within the practices, one presumes that they will be registered social workers who are regulated by the General Social Care Council, but who will register and inspect those practices during the pilot period? They will, of course, be dealing with real children, because this is not just a dummy pilot in a dummy cockpit somewhere. The pilots will have real social workers dealing with children in the care system who have real problems and challenges. Clearly, they must be monitored and regulated in the same way that we would expect social workers to be when working directly for the local authority. Does the Minister know where the pilots are likely to be? He does not necessarily need to list the nine or so recommended pilots, but does he anticipate that the range of areas will give a cross-section of different experiences?
Finally, Unison has some grave concerns. I am not pleading the case for Unison, but it made some relevant points in the brief that we received. It questioned whether social work practices would lack the leverage to facilitate access to other local authority services for looked-after children. That is a fair point. Dealing with vulnerable children desperately needs an holistic approach. A social worker must deal with the local school and the local education authority, and with the housing department of the local authority if accommodation is involved. Can the Minister assure us that social worker practices will have the authority and standing to have that sort of relationship with colleagues, even though those colleagues will be at arm’s length, as they will be within the local authority?
Unison is also concerned that the proposals will fragment the child’s journey through the care system and work against continuity. If the proposals are to be successful, they must address that and social work practices must provide greater continuity than there is now. Unison also refers to the fact that the Government have issued a prospectus canvassing interest from local authorities. Perhaps the Minister could update us on how expressions of interest are going and how advanced that process is.
In principle, we warmly welcome the proposals set out in clauses 1 to 6 and the innovation that they represent. We hope that the move will be successful, but we need to be convinced of how it will be successful and how that success will be judged. We need to be assured that a proper holistic evaluation of the pilot will take place. We will have more to say about the timing of that under clause 6. I am sure that the Minister will reply to some of our concerns. Most importantly, professionals who are expected to transfer to these practices and those who will work alongside them must feel reassured rather than threatened by these controversial, but potentially exciting, provisions of the Bill.

Greg Pope: Order. Before we go any further, I must say that not for the first time in my inauspicious career as a Chairman of Committees I have been too lax. I can see that hon. Members want to point out that clause 1 is related to clauses 2 to 5. It is reasonable to refer to that in passing, but in future we will have more tightly drawn clause stand part debates.

Annette Brooke: I intend to be fairly brief so that I do not repeat what has already been said. I may stray over all six clauses because then those will be over and done with, but I promise not to make the same points again.
We must remember throughout this process to focus on the individual child. We all get dragged into using generic terms such as looked-after children for those who will be in the system for a long time, but we must think about individual children and what they have told us over and over again about the strengths and weaknesses of their relationships with their social workers. It is important to appreciate that there are many strong relationships, but a number children do not feel that they have been supported sufficiently. Their views on this matter are all-important.
As I said on Second Reading, I have some reservations about social work practices. I want to achieve the very best for our children so I do not have any reservations about the pilots. They will help us to see whether we can improve the relationships between children and their social workers. As has been said, the key to that is a stable, highly qualified work force that is responsive to the needs of children. That needs working on across the board.
I agree that it is important to look at local authorities and social work practices together to ensure that we achieve an overall gain. It is important that this is not a zero-sum game in which we lose in one respect as we gain in another, hence my earlier intervention on the Minister. Social work practices will be very focused on one objective. It is an important objective, but we must be assured that the important preventive work and family support work is being provided by highly qualified social workers.
The evaluations will be key in the pilots. Will the Minister consider having independent annual evaluations in the same way as for academies? Social work practices could be just as important as academies in giving a different approach. The evaluations should be independent and the outcomes should be looked at by a multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders. It is important that social work practices are keyed in to all of the other services and the multi-disciplinary approach that is worked towards in “Every Child Matters”. It would be dreadful to achieve in one dimension while things slip through the net in another.
It is also important to not focus just on piloting social work practices. I am sure that there will be many innovations within local authorities. We should be looking at those to ensure that we are spreading good practice. My colleague in the other place, Baroness Sharp, mentioned that the Children’s Workforce Development Council is currently seeking bids to trial new arrangements for social workers in 18 local authorities. Those trials will remodel social work teams to improve the recruitment and retention of social workers and other social care staff. They will aim to increase early intervention work and tackle bureaucracy. We need lots of innovative practice and we always need to be evaluating.
Social care practices are in the Bill so they have a high profile, but we should evaluate them fully before extending the pilots. Most importantly, we should look at the outcomes for all the services dealing with looked-after children. We want the pilots to proceed, but we are asking for a more holistic approach that will look at the whole system in this area.

Kevin Brennan: I will attempt to respect your infallibility, Mr. Pope. However, I think that it would be appropriate to respond to the debate that we have had. We will then have to be very tight in our debates on the following clauses.
Hon. Members have raised a number of questions on the pilots of social work practices. I welcome the tone of those questions in supporting the need to innovate and try out new ideas where we know that the system has not been serving vulnerable children as well as it should have been. We have a moral obligation to try out good ideas when they come forward. That is what we are doing in part 1 and in clause 1 in particular.
I will deal first with the points raised by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. The Government recognise the need to support social workers in doing their difficult and important jobs. We were pleased that the commission that he chaired on behalf of his political party supported many of the Government’s commitments, innovations and approaches in this area. The Government is investing over £73 million in “The Children’s Plan: Building brighter futures”. We published the document earlier this year; I have a copy with me, and members of the Committee are welcome to one. The aim of that plan is to tackle recruitment and retention and improve capacity and morale over the next three years in the social care work force, including piloting newly qualified social worker status. It will also look at workloads and at the bureaucracy surrounding social workers, which are key issues, particularly against the background of high vacancy rates and turnover in some areas.
For that reason the Department has commissioned the Children’s Workforce Development Council to pilot—as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned—other approaches with local authorities, to remodel the delivery of social work and understand how best to configure roles, capacity and support, with the aim of improving the outcomes for and the experiences of vulnerable children, young people and families.
Therefore, it is not just about this pilot; there is a broader agenda as the hon. Lady rightly pointed out. Local authorities involved in those pilots are testing a wide range of approaches, including consideration of the roles of admin staff in social work teams, and the roles of social workers in multi-agency teams, as well as the newly qualified social worker pilots, which will provide managed case-loads for new social workers in their first year’s employment in children’s settings. I have a copy of the information on the Children’s Workforce Development Council pilot programmes, which gives an additional flavour to our discussion about the piloting of social work practices. Those pilots are in the Bill because we have to legislate in order for them to be carried out, not because we seek to feature them or put them above the other pilots and innovations in this area.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also mentioned the registration of social workers. Clause 2 will require the local authority functions being discharged by a social work practice to be discharged by or under the supervision of registered social workers. There was also a query on how the pilots would be regulated and scrutinised. Many people will pay close attention to the work of social work practices in the pilot phase. As part of the contract management process, the local authority will keep a close eye on the outcomes delivered by the practices, and the independent reviewing officer will review and challenge—that is the key point—their work in relation to the individual children they serve. Ofsted will take a broader look as part of the new inspection arrangements for local areas, which include programmed inspections focusing on the quality of services for looked-after children. In addition, we expect that there will be regular scrutiny of the standards of practice in social work practices, to support national monitoring and evaluation of the social work practice model.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also asked whether social work practices will provide greater continuity of outcome. Our aim is to find out whether they can. We believe that they have the potential to bring greater continuity and stability for looked-after children, and that there is sufficient evidence to legislate in this way. However, we are not pre-judging that, because we need to ensure that the pilot is genuine. That is why we are testing the model as outlined in the clauses.
In relation to finances and the overall effect of social work practices, which hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, mentioned, it is absolutely clear that we must look at social work practices on a level playing field. There is no point making this the sort of pilot that is set up to succeed. We want to set up genuine pilots that will be independently evaluated. The funding that we are providing, £2 million per annum for the six to nine pilots across the country, is intended only to support the initial set-up costs.
Local authorities receive £5 billion a year from the Government, of which approximately £300 million is “Care Matters” implementation plan funding. Of that, roughly £6 million will be available for social work pilots over their period. In many ways, they will be no more generously funded than the other pilots that have been referred to, such as the Children’s Workforce Development Council pilots, which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned. There is a level playing field.
On a point that hon. Members are concerned about, we will ensure that the impact on wider services and other children is an integrated part of the evaluation of the pilots. We want to judge them not in isolation from the rest of the social work world but in the context of any potential impact or knock-on effects. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, if they are successful and work for social workers as well as the young people with whom they deal, there is long-term potential for them to act as a magnet to attract people into the profession.

Annette Brooke: One comment that is often made by young people is that they want potential 24-hour-a-day contact. Although that might sound demanding, as a parent one is used to receiving phone calls at all times of the day. Does the Minister feel that social work practices will be able to give something extra to get closer to that parental contact? Will there be in the contracts reasons for somebody to be on tap for a longer period?

Kevin Brennan: The hon. Lady makes a valuable point. We have already found in some of the expressions of interest from third sector organisations that are interested in running social work practices that they feel they will be able to be more flexible, providing not a nine-to-five service but one that is available longer. In one case, I believe that it was to be until 10pm, with special payments available for people who were called out during later hours. That is perhaps a more personal and individual service than there might be from the emergency team in a local authority. There is potential for the out-of-hours service that she refers to in the social work practice model. Again, that is only potential, and we will we not prejudge whether that will happen in practice. We shall ensure that the wider impact of the practices is taken into account in the evaluation.
The funding of social work practices will be set out in their contract with the local authority, which will be crucial. Like any other contact, it will set out the services to be provided, the standards to which they will be provided and the payments that the local authority will make. Crucially, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, an element of the contract will be outcomes-based. It is important that we ensure that social work practices have the incentive to improve.

Edward Timpson: I hear what the Minister says, but in many cases social workers are unable to perform their statutory duties, whether health assessments or statutory visits, purely because of the weight of bureaucracy hanging over them. I spoke to a social worker only a few weeks ago who told me that the laptop that used to be on the left of her desk is now in the middle, because she spends most of her time on it. What assurances can the Minister give that social workers will be involved in not only the evaluation but the practice of the pilot scheme, and that they will be given the freedom and authority to get on with their job rather than be faced with the same bureaucracy as current social workers?

Kevin Brennan: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Committee and, once again, to the House, and I thank him for his intervention. He is right in the sense that one of the purposes of the social work practices is to create a setting in which a group of professionals can work together outwith the bureaucratic structures that they might face working within a large social services department of a local authority, where there may be 400 or more employees. The hon. Gentleman referred to a GP’s practice as an analogy and that may be appropriate. Working as a team of professionals, with the ability to employ their own admin staff to help with the natural bureaucracy of running any small operation, they would be free to engage more directly in their social work with children.
In evaluating the pilots, we will see whether social workers will be freed from the bureaucracy of line management and of working in a large organisation to be able to run with the ball a little more, with clear direction set out by the contract and by the management of the social work practice. It will be for the local authority to decide whether to engage a social work practice and to negotiate a costed contract, bearing in mind its internal costs and budgets.
We are supporting local authorities to improve the recruitment and retention of social workers through learning from good practice such as that in Barnet, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned. If we could reproduce the “Barnet formula”—to coin a phrase—across the country, we would all think that we had successfully implemented the care matters implementation plan. I acknowledge the progress that has been made in Barnet.
I mentioned the newly qualified social worker status programme, which will be targeted, early on, in those areas where there are recruitment difficulties—London and the west midlands—and will use a major marketing campaign for social workers. Obviously, we are looking at the recruitment and retention of social workers. Social work practices are only one remodelling approach; approaches have been mentioned.

Andrew Turner: Would the hon. Gentleman see the new operation describing how people are released from the local authority by freedom or where they have an equivalent list of responsibilities, but are a different body?

Kevin Brennan: I think that I understand what the hon. Gentleman is driving at. Basically, the social work practice will be working to a contract agreed with the local authority, which, in effect, is delegating services that it would otherwise provide directly. The social work practice will have the freedom to operate as an organisation within the contract, which draws up the services that it is expected to deliver. On that basis I will sit down.

Greg Pope: I think that it is safe to say after that debate that if I were a referee at a Euro 2008, I would be on my way home for not giving out enough yellow cards.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Restrictions on arrangements under section 1

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: Bearing in mind what we have just debated, I will be reasonably brief. Cause 2 restricts the functions that local authorities can delegate to social work practices. Those restrictions are important to ensuring quality and focus in the services offered. The first restriction will ensure that the independent reviewing officer role will remain with the local authorities. The independent review officer will have an extremely important role to play under the social work practice model, as they are the mechanism by which the local authority will be able to quality assure the work of the provider of social work services in relation to individual children. In that context, the independent review officer will attend care-planning reviews, as now, to monitor progress and make decisions about changes as necessary. In undertaking that role, the independent review officer will build up an important bank of knowledge about the effectiveness of the social work practice, including its strengths and weaknesses, how well it works with other agencies and the quality of its relationships with children. Consistent with the IRO role, that information should then be fed back to senior managers regularly, whether as part of wider contract management meetings or by some other means. That information flow will be absolutely crucial to enabling the local authority to hold the social work practice to account meaningfully.
The second restriction will ensure that social work practices cannot carry out the local authority’s functions as an adoption agency unless the practice itself is already a registered adoption agency. That is because we want to ensure that children who are likely to remain in care long term are the focus of social work practices, and those are the children who seem to suffer most from the problems with the current system that we and other members of the Committee have identified. Social work practices will be of most use when they develop innovative and effective strategies for working with that group of children that can be transferred to the local authority context and implemented across the country. Indeed, the processes for preparing for adoption are obviously different.
The third restriction that will apply to the provider of social work services will be any restrictions applicable to the local authority by reference to its area, such as restrictions on out-of-area placements. That is intended to ensure consistency of treatment, despite the fact that the functions will have been delegated between children with a social work practice and those who remain in the care of the local authority directly. Finally, the clause will require local authorities to be satisfied that the functions it is to delegate to a provider of social work practices will be discharged by or under the supervision of registered social workers, as we have mentioned.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Effect of arrangements under section 1

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: Clause 3 is extremely important for ensuring a strong framework of accountability for the work of providers of social work services. It is important to be clear that under the social work practice model the local authority will remain the corporate parent for looked-after children and the local authority will remain accountable for what happens to them. Local authorities will use the children and young person’s plan to set out their priorities for local children, including looked-after children, and inform the commissioning of a social work practice.
The local authority’s director of children’s services will have oversight of the operation of the social work practice, just as they would in relation to other local children’s services delivered directly by the local authority. In that respect, the contract between the local authority and the social work practice will be absolutely crucial. It is through that contract that the local authority will set out the outcomes that the social work practices must deliver and the framework within which they must work, including requirements for multi-agency working and other issues relevant to the delivery of local authority services.
Once the contract is agreed, there must be rigorous, frequent and engaged contract management, as there is no question of the local authority tacking its foot off the accelerator simply because of its contract with the social work practice. We envisage a relationship of partnership between the local authority and the social work practice, involving regular meetings to spot potential problems early and agree steps to put them right. The close management of the social work practice will be important in the light of the local authority remaining the corporate parent and retaining responsibility for the discharge of its functions. As I explained earlier, the IRO will be another key mechanism for ensuring that.
Clause 3 confirms that the local authority will be accountable for the acts and omissions of the social work practice, without removing the accountability of the practice itself. That is vital for ensuring the proper protection of children and families supported by providers of social work services. The local authority must remain responsible for the discharge of its functions in relation to looked-after children, even if it delegates some of those functions to a social work practice. As I have said, that means that it will be accountable to the service, provided that it remains the corporate parent of the children it looks after, so children and their families can have the reassurance of knowing that that claim could be pursued against the local authority directly if things go wrong. Local authorities will require a comprehensive contract and proactive contract management.
That does not mean that the social work practice will escape liability for its actions and failures. Its work will be sensitive, the decisions it makes will be critical and we want to ensure that it is directly accountable to the children and families it serves. Although clause 3(1) ensures that the local authority is accountable for the acts and omissions of the social work practice, clause 3(2)(c) confirms that claims may be brought against the practice in the usual way if things go wrong.
Concerns were raised by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford about the human rights implications. I confirm what I said in response to those interventions. Social work practices will be liable for their acts and omissions under the Human Rights Act 1998. Social work practices will discharge public functions and our view is that they will automatically come under the definition of “public authority” in section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act. We take that view because the functions are imposed by legislation on the local authority and the discharge of those functions will be paid for by the local authority out of public funds.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Regulation of providers of social work services

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: Clause 4 provides for the regulation of social work practices. It will require social work practices to be registered with Her Majesty’s chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills and they will be subject to regular inspections. The clause will also enable us to issue national minimum standards for social work practices and make regulations under the Care Standards Act 2000, as we have for other establishments.
We do not intend to bring the clause into force immediately. The pilot period in clause 6 will end when clause 4 is brought into force after there has been an evaluation of the pilots and a decision has been made to roll the model out more widely or five years after Royal Assent, whichever is sooner. We do not think it appropriate for social work practices to be regulated under the 2000 Act during the pilot phase because to introduce a new regulatory system for such a small number of pilots would be unduly burdensome and bureaucratic. Nevertheless, we will have the range of mechanisms that I set out earlier to monitor the work of social care practices and assure their quality.
Social work practices will be within the scope of the annual assessments by the inspectorates, including the chief inspector, from 2009 through the new comprehensive care assessment and through programmed inspections of services for children in care. Moreover, they will have to ensure that their functions are carried out under the supervision of social workers who are registered with the GSCC.

Tim Loughton: Will the Minister say what would happen in the scenario of a social worker who was working for one of the pilots being struck off during the pilot period? Would it differ from what would happen if they were working for the local authority? What additional inspection safeguards would be triggered for such a social worker practice, given that it would not be subject to the GSCC?

Kevin Brennan: My understanding is that such a social worker would not be able to work for the social work practice any longer. I will correct myself if that is wrong. If there were wider implications of that scenario for the social work practice, ultimately there would be provision for the Government to take action centrally. Long before that, the local authority would have the ability to terminate the contract if events were serious enough. If there was systematic failure in a social work practice, I would expect the contract to be terminated at quite an early stage.
At local authority level, there will be proactive contract management by the local authority with input and support from the Department and those acting on its behalf, including Government office staff. That might involve participation in the commissioning process and attendance at contract management meetings. They will give general advice and guidance on commissioning and contract management issues. That will be complemented by the individual case reviews by the independent reviewing officer.
Finally, there will be an independent evaluation of the social work practice model, which we mentioned earlier, which will gather and report on performance measuring it against a range of indicators at regular intervals. Until we have evaluated the operation of the pilots, we will not know whether the practice model will be extended beyond the pilot phase and local authorities, but if it is to be continued to be used, the services should become regulated under the Care Standards Act to ensure high standards of practice from providers of social work services in the long term, in the same way as any other establishment or agency is regulated under that Act.

Andrew Turner: How will providers be released from the pilot? Will they be obliged to work together, or will some be released and others not?

Kevin Brennan: If the independent evaluation finds that the model as a whole has something to offer more broadly, the Government can switch on the ability of any local authority to decide to contract out to a social work practice. The local authority will make that decision—there will be no centrally determined or directed, top-down Government directive ordering local authorities to use this model. The provision will be available beyond the pilot areas to any local authority that feels that it is an appropriate model for them. The evaluation will consider, therefore, not whether an individual social work practice has been successful, but whether the model itself has something to offer to the system.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Functions under this Part to be social services functions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: Very briefly, clause 5 provides that the local authority power to contract with providers of social work services, under clause 1, is a social services function for the purposes of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. That means that the Secretary of State can issue guidance and directions to the local authority about the use of the power. That is important, because the social work practice model is as yet untested, and we will need to put in place mechanisms to ensure effective operation. For example, we are likely to issue guidance on what must be done prior to a contract to verify the quality of the provider, what the contract must include and which children will benefit most from the social work practice approach.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Piloting and expiry of arrangements under this Part

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 6, page 5, line 17, leave out ‘five’ and insert ‘three’.

Greg Pope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 2, in clause 6, page 5, line 18, leave out ‘passed’ and insert ‘comes into force’.

Tim Loughton: Now we have some real amendments—well, they are probing amendments, rather than real ones, so I shall not detain the Committee too long. We have had a good debate on the concept of social work practice already, but I am concerned about getting on with it. Amendment No. 1 would reduce, therefore, the duration of the pilots from five to three years, and amendment No. 2 deals with a technicality that the Minister will probably say is not required. In the working party report, which Professor Le Grand chaired, the time recommended for pilots was at least two years. The recommendation stated:
“The Group’s view is that pilots would need to run for at least two years, if not longer, to provide a sufficiently robust assessment. Also, the Group proposes that there should be nine pilots to provide a robust assessment”.
I am concerned that it will take too long. Why should it take at least five years to assess whether the pilots have worked? Would it not be possible to speed things up by having an assessment after three years? Those three years may turn out not to be long enough—all sorts of reasons for extending the period might be raised during the development of the schemes—in which case there is nothing to stop the Government asking for more time. It could probably be done by regulation. However, I to do not want to see the pilots eventually being set up and running for at least five years, with a further period of assessment being required, further queries bring thrown up and further legislation being required in order to give force to the status of these social worker practices.
On the basis that we could find out whether or not the schemes will be a success, the amendment would reduce the time specified from five years to three. It is a probing amendment, and if the Minister can give us good reasons for why five years has to be the absolute minimum, I shall be happy to take it as read. The purpose of the amendment is to put the Minister on the spot, to challenge the time scale and not the principle.

Annette Brooke: I note that my noble Friend Baroness Sharp moved similar amendments in the other place. When I read that debate, I was concerned about the second point being made—that things could drag on way beyond the five years. That point needs to be addressed this morning, which is why I partially support the amendment. My worry is that three years might not give enough time for a robust assessment, so I want to know how it can be extended if necessary. I share the fears that have been raised. I can see things dragging on for about ten years, which would be ridiculous. I therefore seek some assurance from the Minister.

Kevin Brennan: The first amendment seeks to limit the piloting to three years. The other seeks to ensure that the pilot period does not start until after the powers under clause 1 have been commenced. I acknowledge that the intention is to seek some reassurance that we will pilot the approach of social work practices in a timely fashion and seek further clarification on the timetable for the operation of the pilots.
The timetable for piloting social work practice was set out in some detail in the other place, in the debate referred to by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. However, I shall repeat it because it is important to understand the rationale behind the timetable and the five-year period.
Clause 6(2) allows for clause 1 to be brought into force by reference to a particular local authority or authorities in order to enable the selection of local authorities to pilot the social work practice model. Unless clause 4 is brought into effect within five years of Royal Assent, clauses 1 to 5 will cease to have effect. We therefore have five years to establish the pilots, allow them to run, make a thorough evaluation of them prior to deciding whether to roll out the power to make arrangements under clause 1 to all local authorities. Five years is a reasonable period to undertake that work. Reducing it to three years would compromise the effectiveness of the pilots and risk disrupting children’s lives by not allowing for the appropriate transition periods.
The subsequent timetable for the pilots is as follows. Subject to the successful passage of the Bill, we will move to identify local authorities to take place in the pilots. Those local authorities will begin commissioning social work practices in early 2009, subject to the Bill receiving Royal Assent—and subject to when it receives Royal Assent. Detailed contract negotiations will need to take place between the pilot local authorities and the social work practice providers, and practical arrangements for transferring cases will need to be put into place.
The aim is to have social work practices up and running, with full case loads, by autumn 2009, and that the pilots then run for two years until autumn 2011. During that period, evaluation evidence will be gathered. In the fourth year, 2011-12, the independent evaluation of the pilots will take place. We will ensure that the evaluation report is made public, and that there is a full and proper consultation before the model is made available to all authorities, if that is the desired option. The full evaluation report will obviously be placed in the Library of the House.
The fifth year is a necessary transition period, because if a decision is taken to make the social work practice model available to all local authorities, we will have to ensure that we get the regulatory regime for social work practices right. We will have to consult on that regime, and give the chief inspector time to prepare the inspection arrangements. Those local authorities that had run the pilots would need to commission social work practices for the post-pilot period, and would need time to do so. If the decision were to not make the model more widely available, the pilots would remain in place to allow a well managed and staged transition of staff and children back to the local authority over that year, to ensure minimum disruption to their lives. That is an essential part of ensuring that we support the lives of the children and young people in the pilot authorities, and it is vital to give sufficient time for that.
I hope that members of the Committee will see that while the pilots themselves will not last for the five-year period, we need five years to do all the things around the piloting, including set-up, evaluation, ensuring that we have the evidence base needed to take the right decisions for looked-after children, and consulting on the way forward before taking important decisions. It is also clear from the Bill that we will need to move promptly on Royal Assent. I hope that that goes some way towards explaining why the pilot in the Bill is set at five years.

Edward Timpson: Has the Minister envisaged an extension to the pilot scheme—currently with nine local authorities—whereby if, after the first two-year period of more tightly controlled piloting, sufficient interest is shown by local authorities, which will undoubtedly have been exposed to the other pilot schemes by the nature of the cross boundaries between local authorities, they will be allowed to participate in the scheme during that five-year period?

Kevin Brennan: It is not intended at this stage for there to be any more pilots than the ones that we will announce. As the hon. Gentleman says, if this model becomes immediately attractive and highly successful and is lauded universally, there may be a queue of local authorities desirous of taking it up at an early stage. However, the appropriate thing to do is what we have indicated, which is to set up the pilots that have been funded in the “Care Matters” implementation plan, and to properly and independently evaluate them before making them universally available to other local authorities. I hope that my remarks have explained why we need five years from the date that the Act is passed. On that basis, and given that I understand why the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was probing for more detail, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful for the Minister’s helpful comments. It is clear that it is not just some five years hence and then perhaps some after that, but that the Government appear to have a clearer timetable, which is more rapid and concise than I had anticipated. That is to be welcomed.
When the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole rose to give reluctant support I thought that she was going to pitch for four years, and split the difference between three and five.
It is important that if we are to test the approach as a potential attractive new model, we should get on with it. The assessment part of the piloting timetable that the Government appear to have set is relatively small—not the full five years—and that is helpful. I am also encouraged by the Minister’s comments about proper independent evaluation and consultation in 2011-12 as an essential part of what happens and, looking forward to the regulatory regime, the need to construct an inspection regime. That clarification was helpful, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Kevin Brennan: We have had a fairly good kick around on clauses 1 to 6. Clause 6 is, as I said, crucial to our work on social work practices, because it enables us to test the model. In discussion of the amendments we have had the opportunity to set out in detail how we intend to do that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Border and Immigration Agency: welfare of children

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Beverley Hughes: I welcome the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Pope. Having spent a lot of time, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said, developing the White Paper, I also welcome the opportunity to be a member of the Committee, and to work with the other members to bring the measure to fruition.
Hon. Members will be aware that clause 7 was inserted into the Bill by Members in the other place, to add the Border and Immigration Agency to the list of agencies that are subject to section 11 of the Children Act 2004. The intention was obviously to extend to the agency the duty of safeguarding children. I hope that all hon. Members will acknowledge that safeguarding children has been and continues to be a top priority for the Government.
The Government have listened to the thoughtful and powerful arguments that have been made on this issue about whether those responsible for running the immigration system should have a legal duty to ensure that, consistent with the primary duty to secure our borders, they discharge their functions having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children—the duty set out in section 11 of the Children Act 2004.
We welcome the considerable work already undertaken by the UK Border and Immigration Agency to implement a code of practice to protect children from harm while they are in the UK. I hope that hon. Members will acknowledge that the UKBA already has high standards of care compared with similar bodies, and has worked consistently with the Children’s Commissioner for England. However, we want to go further, learning from experience, in introducing the new code.
Having considered the arguments fully, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families have agreed that aligning the UKBA with those agencies that are already subject to section 11 duty is the right thing to do for children and young people. All agencies working with children and young people should be able to consider how they can safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Now is the right time to introduce a section 11 duty as part of a reformed, streamlined immigration service, working to improve the United Kingdom’s security through stronger border protection, while also welcoming legitimate travellers and trade.
We have until now concentrated, rightly, on getting the infrastructure in place, focusing first and foremost on implementing the system. However, the establishment of UKBA now provides an opportunity to bring a stronger focus not just on the status of children and young people arriving in the UK, but on their safety and welfare.
It is important that we make the right legislative provision, to bind the UKBA effectively into a section 11 duty, while taking account of the agency’s particular distribution of legal functions, and its UK-wide remit. The current provision in the Bill does not address the proposed organisation of UKBA, nor does it encompass that range of its functions.
Today, the Government are giving a public commitment to pursue a section 11 duty for UKBA, but we intend to do so not in this Bill but in the forthcoming immigration Bill, which will be published in draft in July. The intention is that it will be introduced in the 2008-09 Session, and I therefore want to give Members notice of my intention to introduce an amendment on Report to remove clause 7 from the Children and Young Persons Bill. It is right that the duty affects the operation of UKBA not just in England and Wales but throughout the UK. It is also right that we take the necessary time and effort to work with colleagues to find a legislative solution that is accepted throughout the UK, works consistently in the interests of children and young people throughout the UK, and is consistent with, and obviously does not undermine, the integrity of our asylum and immigration system.
I hope that Members will accept the Government’s intentions and the commitment that I have given today, and will support the way in which we intend to proceed.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. She did give us slight prior notice of her intention, and that was helpful. I shall make some comments about why the principle behind clause 7 is important, and welcome, cautiously, what the Minister said.
Clause 7 was added to the Bill in the other House, when an amendment moved by my noble Friend Baroness Morris of Bolton received widespread support from all parts of the House and was passed by more than 50 votes. So, there is widespread support for its inclusion, and those of us who were around for the proceedings of the Children Act 2004 had a debate then about whether it should have been included on the list in what is now section 11 of the 2004 Act. Section 11 contains 13 different agencies on whom there has been placed a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, ranging from the obvious, such as children’s services authorities, to strategic health authorities, youth offending teams and so on. We had a lot of debate about which of those should have been added.
Four years on, this Bill represented the next opportunity to place a duty on the immigration services, and some would say that it has been four years too long, that we should not have to wait any longer and that we had hoped that it would go through in clause 7. However, having said that, I appreciate that clause 7 is technically deficient. The Minister alluded to the fact that the Border and Immigration Agency has become the UK Border Agency, and it cannot be covered because it is a UK-wide body that the Bill does not therefore deal with. There was a problem with the way in which clause 7, which was perfectly well intentioned, was fashioned in the other House. The problem needed to be dealt with, and clearly, those who supported the inclusion of the clause will need to see the detail that the Minister has promised to produce in draft with the Bill in July—before the summer recess, I hope. We are taking a deal on trust, but one is heartened by the Minister saying that it is the right thing to do and that she is intent on introducing the duty in principle.
Importantly, however, if the provision is to be effective, it must lead to a culture change in the immigration service. We are dealing with very vulnerable children who come to this country seeking asylum as refugees, and with trafficked children. This is a group—in some cases, unfortunately, a growing group—of very vulnerable children who desperately need all agencies with whom they come into contact, placed under a duty to safeguard and promote their welfare, to act in their best interests.
It would be useful to firm up the Minister’s commitment that a duty equal to the weight of that carried in section 11 of the 2004 Act would be introduced in the new legislation. As there are two Departments involved—the Home Office, with which the Minister has personal experience, and the Department of Children, Schools and Families—it might be useful to know which is to be the lead Department. In that way, children’s interests will not be swallowed up in the Home Office and the DCSF will have an ongoing role in monitoring how this duty pans out, as it has for the 13 other bodies already covered under the 2004 Act.
Given that the Bill to be produced before the recess is a draft Bill for the Queen’s Speech, we are looking at the actual Bill being published in December. We could be waiting at least another year for it to come into effect after the passing of the legislation. We could be looking at a delay of more than five years from the first opportunity to include the immigration authorities within the Bill in 2004.
Will the Minister assure us, insofar as she can be responsible for Government timetabling of Bills, that this will be seen as a priority? Can anything be done in the meantime in terms of clear guidance from her Department, or jointly with the Home Secretary—not backed up by statutory duty yet—so that the immigration authorities can at least prepare on the basis of a strong likelihood and a firm intention by the Government that a formal statutory duty will be placed upon them in the not-too-distant future?
I do not wish in any way to denigrate or undermine the important processes that currently happen within the immigration service, greatly under pressure as it is. We have to balance what is achievable and practical without placing the service under undue pressures, which might have knock-on effects.
We are dealing with perhaps the most vulnerable subsets of children and it is imperative that this is taken seriously and introduced unequivocally on an equal basis to the current section 11 arrangements. Everything possible must be done to speed up its introduction. Any comments from the Minister on that score would be greatly appreciated.

Annette Brooke: I congratulate the Minister for Children, Young People and Families because I am sure that there has been considerable dialogue between the two Departments. I welcome this as a step forward.
I agree with the Minister that the Government have made safeguarding children a top priority and I have been proud to be a Member of Parliament during that period. It has to be said, however, there has been a dual system of safeguarding: one for children who are UK citizens and then the others. Surely, every child matters and we should be putting the child first throughout, regardless of status?
I agree that we will need to see the detail before making detailed comments. I hope that all the organisations will be fully engaged—they come under the Refugee Children’s Consortium—in determining the details and the timetable. I, too, must express concern about the time that this has taken. I remember our discussions in the Committee that considered the 2004 Act when I joined forces with Hilton Dawson, the former Member for Lancaster and Wyre, on this issue, as the Minister will recall. I am sad that it has taken four years; nevertheless the fact that we have reached the right conclusion is welcome.
I am aware that a halfway house—“Better Outcomes”—has been discussed with the immigration authorities, and I wonder what can be done in the interim between making the momentous announcement today and the final implementation of the measures. Because there is a change in culture, we could be doing a lot more in the pathway to the legislation being passed. I, too, recognise that clause 7 was technically deficient, but my greatest regret is the time we waited, plus the long delay for the next immigration Bill. Overall, however, we are taking a step in the right direction.

Mark Williams: In the spirit of the dialogue to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole referred between the DCSF and the Home Office, what discussions have taken place or will take place with the National Assembly Government in Wales, not least because we are in the vexed area of a reserved matter, which is delivered in a devolved context? That also applies to colleagues in Scotland.

Beverley Hughes: First, let me say how very much I welcome the responses from Opposition Members and their recognition that our intention is genuine. I am pleased that we can now move forward in the way that I outlined. I am also pleased that they acknowledged, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham intimated, the difficult tensions and dilemmas in maintaining effective immigration controls. No-one on this Committee is more acutely aware of those difficulties than I. It is important that our nation not attract organised traffickers shipping children across to England because it looks like being an easy place to stay for anyone who manages to get here. We must balance that with our desire to safeguard and protect children while they are here, although the majority will not end up with the right to remain here. Sometimes, that balance is genuinely difficult to strike.
We have moved forward. It is not that nothing has happened during the past four years. The BIA has a duty to protect children from harm and a code of practice has been developed to which the agency is now working, but as is often the case in politics, things have moved on, and it has become possible to take further steps because of a change in context. It is largely due to the effective way in which the Government have been able to reassure people about immigration control that we have a different context in which we can move forward and the immigration agency has moved forward. I am pleased that we have reached that point.
However, to answer another point raised by the hon. Gentleman, the right place to scrutinise the duty will be during consideration of the Bill that establishes and gives a legal constitution to a new UK-wide agency. The policy decisions about the constitutional form of the agency, what powers it will have and how those powers will relate to the powers that the Secretary of State will retain on immigration have not yet been finalised. The right place for hon. Members besides us to scrutinise the duty that we will introduce will be in the context of the Bill to set up the UKBA. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the duty will be equal and will establish parity in the obligations between the agencies that are now subject to the section 11 duty with a duty under the new legislation. In drafting the provision, colleagues and officials in the Home Office and my Department will, jointly, consult other organisations.
On the further delay and whether anything can be done in the mean time, which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole asked about, it is important that we get the measure right. We are making a major commitment in establishing the UKBA, and as I have said, it is right to make this provision in the context of the Bill dealing with the UKBA and the relevant changes. However, we have the code of practice and the current duty and we want to ensure that we learn the lessons from the developments that they have already been brought about in terms of changing culture and practice in the agency dealing with immigration, and to build on those lessons as we move forward with the equivalent duty. Obviously, based on the commitment that I have given and in the context of current thinking, the setting up of the UKBA will take place in the knowledge that this statutory duty will be placed on it, and that will inform all the thinking and planning from this point onwards.
I hope that we can proceed in the way that I have outlined. I am not asking the hon. Members to disagree to the clause at this stage, but I will do so on Report.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Well-being of children and young persons

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in clause 8, page 6, line 4, after ‘England’, insert
‘and persons over 16 years of age but under 22 years of age who have received services under section 23C to 24D of the 1989 Act in the past five years.’.
This amendment is tabled in my name and that of the hon. Member for Upminster, our indefatigable Whip, who, I failed to mention earlier, cannot be with us today as she is busy whipping somebody else somewhere else. She will be bringing her qualities and great knowledge of this subject to us shortly.
This is a probing amendment—it is difficult to get something that is not a probing amendment in respect of parts of certain clauses, but we are trying. It is designed to tease out more about the arrangements whereby the Government clearly recognise the ongoing responsibilities to children who have come out of the care system and to tighten up the terms of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, which was welcome, although too many of our children leaving care still have a tough time. I am sure that the hon. Member for Stafford, who does such an excellent job chairing the parliamentary group on children in and leaving care, will have some comments to make.
The statistics remain alarming. Nearly half of all the young people in the care system will leave it at 16 or 17, compared with an average “flying the nest” age for children living with their families of 23 or 24. Those children are leaving the shelter of the care system—albeit it is still inadequate and some of the outcomes are still woefully poor—at a sensitive, fragile period in their lives. At 16 or 17 they may be leaving school, going through important exams or, hopefully, going on to higher education or training of some sort. They may face the problems of leaving the support mechanism that the care system has provided for many of them and getting appropriate housing and accommodation, let alone moving on to a job. I know that the Government recognise that and that the thrust of the 2000 Act was to achieve greater support after children leave the care system.
The amendment is intended to place the duty for promoting the well-being of children on those who have been responsible for them in the care system during the previous five years. We need to achieve greater flexibility. There is a black and white situation in respect of children in care in the UK: they are either in care or with a family. I mentioned earlier the number of children who come into the care system on a shorter-term basis and return to their families, but many children in care are completely cut off from family background and family members.
About 18 months ago, I visited Denmark with colleagues; we also went to Helsinki. There is much greater flexibility in the systems there. While in Denmark, we visited an impressive care home outside Copenhagen. Proportionately, many more children in the care system there are in residential homes. Adoption is virtually non-existent—only 20 children had been adopted in the previous year in Denmark. Although the Danes use fostering, they make far more use of residential children’s homes.
The particularly impressive children’s home that we visited housed children ranging from under 10—I think the youngest was 7 or 8—right up to 22, which is an enormous range of ages. They were looked after by fantastic pedagogue social workers from whom, as was said on Second Reading, we in this country have a lot to learn. Those social workers develop a great empathy with the children and are seen as friends and confidantes as well as being the children’s guardians. The children there are not encapsulated in a children’s home and cut off from the outside world. Each week, there is a dinner evening to which relatives are invited—perhaps the birth parents or other members of the extended family—to spend as normal a meal time as possible with the child or other residents of the children’s home. The children may spend weekends back at home or with an extended family member. There is a degree of flexibility.
If a child has to be taken out of the home environment, that need not be the be-all and end-all—the beginning of a slippery slope to permanent care proceedings being taken and that child going into long-term fostering or, ultimately, a long-term adoptive placement. We need greater flexibility in our system, which is why the amendment acknowledges, in the spirit of what the Government are trying to achieve in the Bill, that there should be an ongoing duty to promote the well-being of children who been involved in the care system over several years.
Life, particularly for vulnerable children who have endured traumatic conditions, is not a nice, smooth journey. There can be problems at school or in training that result in their failing to get the exam results or training qualifications that they need, so that, all of a sudden, they are faced with an uncertain future and crisis. Another typical problem is the housing that they have been given goes pear-shaped for some reason. Somebody who might have appeared confident at 16 or 17 when leaving the formal care system all of a sudden returns to a rather more chaotic lifestyle and needs support. They need to be able to go back to the social worker who was their support when they were fully in the care system, or to somebody at the local authority, in the housing department or whatever, with whom they can deal on an understanding basis.
The statistics show that within two years of leaving care, of the 6,000 young people who leave care in a year, 3,000 will be unemployed—half of them will not have a job and will lack the stability that might put them back on the road to having some degree of permanency and sustainability in their lifestyle. No fewer than 2,100 will be mothers or pregnant. The propensity of girls leaving the care system either to be mothers already or to become pregnant is deeply alarming. When we simply cast those young girls off without some ongoing monitoring by a social worker or somebody from the local health service, a sexual advice clinic or other agency, we fail them, even though we know they are, for various reasons, far more susceptible to becoming teenage mothers. The Minister has rightly highlighted teenage pregnancies as a major problem: we still have the highest level of teenage pregnancies in western Europe. Of those 6,000 people leaving care each year, 1,200 will be homeless.
These are deeply traumatic times and things do not all go smoothly, but it can be an erratic journey. What we are trying to achieve, which I am sure is what the Government are trying to achieve also—we are just trying to tease out some detail—is that there will be a flexible duty to promote the well-being of children in England after they have formally left the care system, until they are in a position to be able to stand on their own two feet, and that they have some sustainability and continuity in order to do that. That is the purpose of this probing amendment.
I am sure that the Minister will say, “No worries, it is all catered for elsewhere in the Bill,” and I would be delighted to take her at her word, but I would like an assurance that that is the intention behind the legislation. One criticism of the Bill is that it is full of good intentions. It is certainly going in the right direction, but in some areas it lacks the force to produce the delivery, which, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said earlier, is crucial. What matters is not how many clauses we pass, how many new structures we set up, or how many people with shiny new titles and nice smart lapel badges we create, but the effect that they will have on the children who desperately need their support. That is what the amendment is trying to achieve.

Annette Brooke: I have a great deal of sympathy with everything that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has just said. I am sure that all of us in this room have visited projects that have shown what can be done. I have had the privilege of visiting a “Make the Difference” project in Tower Hamlets. That was excellent for the young people who were participating, dropping in, meeting regularly, but it did not necessarily ensure that those who had dropped out at 16 would feel confident to drop back into the varying arrangements that are available for young people. This is an important issue. I am quite sure that there is good practice out there in particular local authorities, but the problem is how to spread that good practice and how to change the situation so that we do not end up with young people in custody, homeless and all the other very sad consequences that often befall looked-after children when, for one reason or another, they have left the care system. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about whether there is more that we can do in legislation to give a bigger push to the spread of good practice.

Beverley Hughes: I am sure hon. Members are aware that the journey that we have been on over recent years, which culminated in the spirit within the children’s plan, has crystallised a process of developing a new way of working and looking at the needs of children and young people, putting them at the heart of everything that we are doing. What we want to do in the clause is to take the opportunity to reflect properly in statute the Secretary of State’s policy responsibilities for the well-being of all children in the country. Our intention in doing so is to demonstrate our long-term commitment to improving the lives of children and young people.
When we talked to children, young people and their parents during the children’s plan consultation, they made clear the positive value that they place on the experience of childhood as a whole. They talked about developing play, social and emotional skills and talent, for example, and how our young people can make an important contribution, as well as enhancing opportunities and building foundations for their success.
For many years the Secretary of State has carried out activities for the benefit of children and is already required by the Education Act 1996 to promote their education. The significant developments in policy over recent years under this Government, through the Children Act 2004, the Every Child Matters agenda and, more recently, the establishment of the new Department for Children, Schools and Families, mean that we want the Secretary of State to be able to look more closely at the needs of the whole child, and a wide range of matters affecting children’s lives, their health and their happiness. This is in addition to the educational needs that obviously remain very important.
Therefore, our commitment to children’s well-being recognises these changes to the Secretary of State’s priorities for children and is in line with similar duties on local authorities and, indeed, on schools too. It also reflects the Secretary of State’s general policy responsibilities in a manner that complements—I will explain this point in a moment—the operational responsibilities of local children’s services and brings a consistent focus on children’s outcomes at every level in the system.
We have considered carefully how this new provision will impact on care leavers. First, all relevant children who are 16 or 17 are children for the purposes of this provision and the Secretary of State will have the same duties to promote their well-being as he does to all other children. We also recognise that the Secretary of State’s responsibilities clearly extend beyond children to include some groups of particularly vulnerable young adults, such as former relevant children—that is, care leavers who are over 18. Therefore I think it is right that this clause includes explicit reference to this particular group, that the Secretary of State takes powers to make provision for them, and that this arrangement mirrors that of local authorities. We have actually modelled this clause on the parallel provision—that is, section 10 of the Children’s Act 2004—under which local authorities are required to co-operate with local partners to improve the well-being of children in their area. The same definition of well-being is used in this clause too, reflecting the five Every Child Matters outcomes.
In the same way as section 10 of the 2004 Act, this clause draws a distinction between the Secretary of State’s duties to all children and his powers to develop policies that promote well-being for particular groups of young adults. The way in which that was done in the 2004 Act, and the way we are replicating that now, is formally to recognise that the state’s relationship with a group of young adults is necessarily different from that which the state has with children who are wholly dependent and who have specifically little or no legal autonomy. It is clearly appropriate to use terminology in a sense that more closely reflects the partnership, in that context, that the state needs to develop with these young people—to ensure that services are provided in a way that supports their growing independence and recognises their right to exercise choice in whether to engage with these services or not.
I agree with all of the points that Opposition Members have made about the need to ensure at the local authority level that there is continuity for those young people who need it and I think—to answer the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham’s question specifically—the formulation of this clause and the power for young people over the age of 18, achieves the intention that he wants to see. It enables the Secretary of State to take action but it respects the transition that young people are making to adulthood.
It also reflects the current distinction that we have formulated for local authorities in section 10 of the current legislation and, indeed, in executing that power, we know that there has been a tremendous development in the extent to which local authorities now keep in touch with young people over the age of 18. In that group, 90 per cent of young people are in touch with local authorities, and the outcomes for them, whilst we are not yet satisfied with them, are clearly developing.
I hope that hon. Members would accept that, in formulating the clause in this way, we are reflecting what we have already decided in relation to local authorities. It is not in any way to reflect a lesser importance of these young people, but rather also to respect their position in life, moving into adulthood and reflecting the way in which we have framed the operational responsibilities of local authorities. With that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful for the Minister’s explanation. I thought that she was going to say, “This is a jolly good amendment, and we will accept it.” That would have been a turn-up for the books. However, we seem to be on the same lines.
My concern, however, is about striking a balance between recognising the particular vulnerabilities and requirements of 16, 17 and 18-year-olds coming out of the care system and respecting their transition into adulthood—as the Minister put it. Local authorities should not use that as an excuse by saying, “Well, we don’t need to trample on them.” As I have said, and given evidence on, those children are much more susceptible to greater problems than their rest of their cohort. I have some other figures on the health aspect: two thirds of all looked-after children were reported to have at least one physical health complaint, and 45 per cent. of those aged five to 17 were assessed as having at least one mental health disorder, compared with one in 10 of the child population overall. That is an enormous difference in vulnerability.
As we know, such problems, particularly mental illness, need to be addressed as early as possible, and there needs to be a continuum of care until somebody can stand on their own two feet. All too often, the child and adolescent mental health services—Cinderella services within the Cinderella service of the NHS—can be erratic and a postcode lottery. Certainly, if children in the care system are fortunate enough to access CAMHS—perhaps through being in a residential home where, as a result of the high fees charged, they buy in mental health services, because of the waiting list for, or lack of availability of, certain talking therapies locally—but then effectively enter the big wide world on their own, without support from the mental health services, we have a false economy. It will result only in that person being less able to stand on their own two feet during the transition into adulthood, as the Minister said.
My amendment was a probing one, and the Minister has made some favourable comments about how we are trying to achieve the same thing. However, this was a useful debate in emphasising that local authorities have a duty of care beyond what is in the Bill. Their duties do not become minimal when looked-after children leave the care system, and in may cases their role remains just as important for many years to come. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 8, page 6, line 15, leave out from ‘State’ to ‘in’ in line 16 and insert
‘must discharge functions under this section in a manner consistent with the objectives of safeguarding the welfare of children as set out’.

Greg Pope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 26, in clause 8, page 6, line 17, at end insert
‘and to the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.’.

Tim Loughton: This is one of those annoying little amendments that usually centres on the use of the word “must”, of which we have many. However, this is a slight variation. The genesis of the amendment goes back to debate on the Children Bill 2004, when my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who was helping me on the Front Bench, tabled an amendment to clause 8. The amendment would have replaced a provision about functions being discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the safeguard of children with
'in a manner consistent with the objective of safeguarding and promoting'
the welfare of children, which was rather punchier. “Having regard to” covers a multitude of sins. It does not necessarily mean that the agency that is bound to have regard to something has to do anything about it. It must only acknowledge that there may be a problem or that a service needs to be delivered. As long as it has regarded it, it does not need to follow it through. That terminology is too weak, and I fear that in too many cases it can be used as a get-out clause for not producing the goods.
The amendment is to clause 8(5), which contains the limp language that the Secretary of State,
“in discharging functions under this section, must have regard to the aspects of well-being mentioned”
in section 10 of the Children Act 2004. We want to replace that with much punchier terminology that means something, so that the Secretary of State
“must discharge functions under this section in a manner consistent with the objectives of safeguarding the welfare of children as set out”
in section 10(2)(a) to (e) of that Act. Those paragraphs contain the Every Child Matters imperatives of
“physical and mental health and emotional well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made by them to society”
and
“social and economic well-being.”
Section 10 of the Children Act is a much more positive promotion than clause 8. It states:
“The arrangements are to be made with a view to improving the well-being of children”
in relation to those various factors. We are trying to give the Secretary of State a bit more vim, stating that he must not just have regard to, but positively promote, the considerations in that section. I am therefore sure that the Minister will have no problem in saying that the amendment is worthwhile and constructive and will strengthen what the Bill is intended to do. I shall be surprised if she ducks that challenge.

Annette Brooke: I, too, look forward to the Minister’s response to that interesting presentation of the amendment, which seemed to make a lot of sense.
I wish to speak briefly to amendment No. 26. It will not be the first time that I have spoken to such an amendment to legislation on children. As with our previous debate, we might get there eventually. It is always interesting to note that the UK played a leading role in drafting the UN convention on the rights of the child, and that the previous Government were an early signatory of it.
In October, the UK’s implementation of the convention will be examined for the third time by the UN Committee on the Rights of Child. It is not enough to sign up, it is all about implementation. One of the committee’s 78 recommendations made in 2002 was that the UK should incorporate the convention into domestic law. Although the amendment would not give children new rights that could be tested in the courts, it would introduce a children’s rights proofing process that we have not so far incorporated into our policy development and legislation. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and I were in a meeting about children’s rights not long ago, and a social worker said that one of the most important things that would make a social worker’s life clearer and promote the career would be working to a rights agenda. That was a telling comment, coming from somebody who actually works with children.
Of course, there are a number of articles of the convention, and I do not propose to mention many. However, I shall touch on article 12, which begins:
“States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child”.
I appreciate that the Government have made great moves forward in listening to children. Nevertheless, there are some issues in the Bill on which we think the child’s voice could be strengthened, in certain cases with the support of advocacy. The importance of having a guardian is another issue. A number of issues perpetually arise that would be tackled if we incorporated the convention into our legislation.
I would like to mention briefly that the UK still has a reservation on article 22 of the convention on the rights of the child, which relates to the protection of asylum-seeking children. I was quite heartened in January when the Government announced plans to re-examine that reservation. I would be interested to hear an update on that alongside the news that we have had this morning.
Many of the issues that we are raising through amendments would automatically come under consideration if we signed up to the UN convention. It is common sense that our children’s rights should be respected and that we should incorporate the convention into all legislation that touches on children’s issues. I commend amendment No. 26 to the Minister.

David Kidney: Mr. Pope, let me say that it is a great pleasure to serve on this Committee under your kindly but hawk-like, miss-nothing eye.
I will speak in favour of amendment No. 26. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole has said, this is not an amendment to incorporate the obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child into UK law. In my view, that is a pity because I think that we should incorporate those rights. We have done some great work for children since 1997 with the target to eradicate child poverty, the “Every Child Matters” agenda, the “Quality Protects” programme for looked-after children, the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and now the “Care Matters: Time for Change” White Paper.
With the children’s plan last year, I think that the time is right to incorporate the convention into our law. Instead, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, the use of the language that the Secretary of State “must have regard to” is a backsliding and easy target for him to hit. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends the Ministers do not think it very demanding to expect Ministers to have regard to the convention’s rights when carrying out their duty to promote the well-being of children in England. After all, all Ministers sign up to the ministerial code, which states that they have an overarching duty to obey the law, including our international obligations. The UK has signed the convention.
Do the Ministers think that the amendment is a sensible first step on the route to the wider acceptance of the rights in the UN convention? When we agreed clause 7, there was an encouraging sign that we would do better for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We are going in the right direction, and this would be another step in that direction. If there is a clinching argument that my right hon. and hon. Friends the Ministers will accept, it is that the General Social Care Council, which was established by the Government to set standards for conduct and practice in social care, supports amendment No. 26 and thinks that it should be passed.

Beverley Hughes: I hope that no Opposition Member would ever accuse me of trying to duck issues. I share the spirit of what both amendments are trying to achieve. I hope I can convince hon. Members that the way in which we have formulated the well-being duty in clause 8 is intended to achieve the ambitions that they have set out.
It is important to remember that the definition of well-being in the Children Act 2004, which we are using as our basis, reflects the whole range of outcomes that we want for children. It includes their physical and mental health; their emotional well-being; their protection from harm and neglect; their education, training and recreational needs; their contribution to society and their social and economic well-being. Those are all vital factors in determining whether children have the enjoyable childhood that we want them to have as well as being prepared and supported so that they can succeed in later life.
Local authorities and schools already have a duty to promote the well-being of children as defined in these terms. In the clause, we are keen accurately to reflect the Secretary of State’s general policy responsibilities in a manner that complements the operational responsibilities of local children’s services and introduces a consistent focus on children’s outcomes at every level of the system.
The problem with amendment No. 4, as formulated, is that it would narrow the Secretary of State’s well-being duty to a focus on safeguarding alone and disregard the other key aspects of well-being. Of course, safeguarding is a top priority, and it was a key driver in “Every Child Matters”, but as I have just outlined, the outcomes that we want to see under “Every Child Matters” go beyond safeguarding into various other areas.
The clause is not phrased in weasel words. It says:
“It is the general duty of the Secretary of State to promote the well-being of children in England.”
What could be clearer? The hon. Gentleman has contributed positively to many pieces of legislation on children and other areas of policy, and he is experienced enough to know that the fact that subsection (5) uses the phrase “must have regard to” before pointing to the relevant sections of the Children Act means that the Secretary of State must exercise the specific duty in the clause in relation to sections 10(2)(a) to (e) of the Children Act. It is therefore a little unfair to suggest that the duty that we are trying to place on the Secretary of State to promote well-being falls short of our intention.

Tim Loughton: I am disappointed so far, but perhaps the Minister can tell me what weight she places on the phrase “have regard to”, as opposed to the phrase
“in a manner consistent with the objectives of safeguarding the welfare of children”,
which is in the amendment. Does she not acknowledge that the wording of amendment carries more punch and is stronger than “have regard to”, regardless of whether it refers to the duty in subsection (1)? The wording in the amendment is stronger. Local authorities have had problems with the interpretation of the phrase of “have regard to”.

Beverley Hughes: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s premise. In legal terms, “have regard to” is equivalent to what he has outlined. Indeed, Opposition Members argued not long ago for a section 11 duty on the Border and Immigration Agency, so they were apparently happy to accept that having “regard to” the need to safeguard children was a strong enough formulation to impose on that agency and all the agencies listed in section 11 of the 2004 Act. Opposition Members accepted that the wording was strong enough in that situation, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that using the same terminology here—as parliamentary counsel will—gives us a strong enough formulation of the duty, particularly in conjunction with subsection (1), which makes very clear what the duty is.

Tim Loughton: For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that we argued for an amendment to the effect that the wording should not be “have regard to” for all the other agencies on the list, but the Government defeated us. We are just trying to be consistent in terms of what goes into the legislation; our current proposals do not signal any weakening of our intent with regard to the Border and Immigration Agency.

Beverley Hughes: I was not a member of the Committee that discussed the 2004 Act, but Opposition Members need to think whether the phrase “have regard to” has weakened the pursuit of the objectives before us by the agencies concerned, because I do not think that there is any evidence that it has. The wording in the clause is the normal way in which we express such obligations legally. Taken in conjunction with subsection (1), it makes clear what our intention is.

It being One o’clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Four o’clock.